Important Changes Ahead for CRCID (Please Read)

2003 July 20

To all Presidents of Canadian Rotary Clubs:

I would like to bring you greetings from the Canadian Rotary Committee for International Development (CRCID) on behalf of its Chairman and Rotary International Director John Janes Eberhard and myself. We wish you all the best in the new Rotary Year while you “LEND A HAND” in the World Community.

CRCID is a uniquely Canadian organization. Canada is the only country in the Rotary world that has access to additional matching contributions to Rotary funds available for international development projects. These funds are provided by CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency.

Canadian Rotary Clubs are making less use of these funds these days to do World Community Service projects in CIDA approved developing countries. In a comparison report between applications received by the Rotary Foundation (TRF) and CRCID from Canadian Rotary Clubs, there has been a dramatic decrease in the utilization of CRCID. In 2000/01 46.24% of the Matching Grant applications submitted to TRF also included applications to CRCID. In 2002/03 this had dropped to 29.92%.

One of the primary reasons for this decline is the rumour that CRCID is out of money.

I am writing this to allay the concern that CRCID is “out of money”. CRCID has been and is still receiving its annual contribution of $728,000.00 from CIDA or $182,000 each quarter. We are OPEN FOR BUSINESS and are providing matching contributions at a reduced rate of 50 cents Canadian to a dollar of the funds raised by a Canadian Rotary Club for international humanitarian projects. However, in order to re-establish the fiscal integrity of the organization, funding for these projects is currently experiencing delays of up to 6 months or 2 funding cycles before receiving their funds.

As many of you are aware, CRCID is struggling with what we are calling a “contingent liability”. Contingent liability is defined as the dollar amount for projects that have been approved by CRCID but not yet paid out. We saw a phenomenal increase (1,200%) in the applications for CRCID funds for World Community Service projects by Canadian Rotary Clubs in 1999 and 2000. The total amount approved in these two years was far in excess of the contribution we received from CIDA during the same period. The contingent liability was identified as an issue in 2001. At that time CRCID did not have any effective measures in place to deal with this tremendous increase in applications. The Board of Directors quickly took measures that have reduced and will eventually eliminate this liability. They also introduced new policies to ensure that this situation occurs never again.

Please be assured that CRCID is diligently working towards eliminating this contingent liability, hopefully by the end of the 2004/05 fiscal year. CRCID has already made an impressive dent in the liability by reducing it from $2.5 million to its current level of $1.05 million within 18 months.

We empathize with the Canadian and offshore Rotarians who are volunteering their time and contributing their club funds to help those less fortunate. We also get complaints about the amount of paper work required to receive CRCID funds. These are placed on us by our funding partner CIDA and we seldom have any control over these requirements.

We would like to “Lend a Hand” to all Canadian Rotarians seeking to implement World Community Service projects. Please visit our website: www.crcid.org or talk to your District CRCID member. You will find us informative, friendly and willing to assist you in implementing sustainable development projects. We are looking forward to hearing from you.


Sincerely,

Raju V. Paul, M.Sc., P.Eng.
President